The Enigmatic Castrati - Farinelli

In 2017, the Queen's Gallery in London hosted an amazing exhibition called 'Canaletto and the Art of Venice'. The Royal Collection has the largest group of Canaletto paintings, drawings and etchings in the world, as well as significant works of art by his contemporaries in eighteenth-century Venice, such as Sebastiano and Marco Ricci, Francesco Zuccarelli, Giovanni Pellegrini, Rosalba Carriera, Antonio Visentini, Antonio Zanetti and Pietro Longhi. A careful selection of works by these artists features alongside some of the most important Canaletto paintings in the world. The exhibition does a great job at giving the viewer a deeper appreciation of the artist, his working methods and how his techniques developed by displaying amazing preparatory works, drawings and paintings by his precursors and contemporaries who influenced Canaletto’s views of the city of Venice.

I really enjoyed the drawings by Marco Ricci in the exhibition, and one of them caught my attention for a different reason as well, on top of the artistic one: the character’s story. And that character is the well-known castrato Carlo Maria Michelangelo Nicola Broschi, famously known as Farinelli.

Marco Ricci (1676-1730), Farinelli in Walking Dress, pen and ink, c. 1729-30

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He was the most celebrated of the Italian castrati. He was destined by his family to have a singing career and was castrated before puberty to preserve his exceptional boy’s treble voice into adulthood. The castrato voice was appreciated throughout Western Europe from the 16th century, and especially in the 18th century, with the increasing popularity of opera. Pre-pubertal castration was practised especially in Italy. It was an illicit practice and took place in great secrecy at any age before boys reached puberty. The explanation behind it often stated that it had been necessary due to an accident, like a kick from a pig or a fall from a horse. The operation, of course, had side effects. One of them meant that the boys’ bones never properly hardened, giving singers extensive lung capacity, allowing them to hold notes for far longer than any soprano. Another one was the fact that it made them grow unusually tall.

Ricci also depicted Farinelli as a tall young man in this drawing that was probably created when Farinelli appeared at the Teatro San Giovanni Crisostomo during the carnival season of 1729-30. He performed the roles of Arbace in Catone in Utica and Mirteo in Semiramide Riconosciuta. We can notice Farinelli’s slim figure caricatured by Ricci, as well as his thick eyebrows and protruding teeth.

Farinelli was considered by his contemporaries as the most outstanding singer of his time. His voice could span over three octaves and due to his thoracic development, he could hold a note for a whole minute without taking a breath.

Unlike any other castrato of whom knowledge exists, Farinelli came from a noble family. He was born at Andria, in Apulia on January 24th in 1705, although, for some reason, he always claimed and perhaps believed himself that he was a native of Naples. Due to his family’s status (his father was Royal Governor of the towns of Maratea and Cisternino), it is hard to believe that they would have consented to their son’s castration, which is why it is often considered that this actually took place following an accident or to ward off an illness. He seems to have gone to Naples as a very young boy, maybe so young that he didn’t remember Andria at all, and soon started to apply himself assiduously to the study of music. His principal master was Nicola Porpora in many of whose operas he sang afterwards. They had a lengthy association but despite this, Porpora seems to have always preferred Caffarelli as a singer, for all his dislike of him as a man.

Farinelli’s studies are said to have been funded by two rich lawyers: the Farina brothers (possibly the source for his stage name, although others claim it was simply because as a young singer he was showing the traits of the famous ‘virtuoso Farinelo’ – see Research page for source). His fame rapidly became prodigious. He was known as ‘Il ragazzo’ (the boy) and, being handsome as well as a phenomenal singer, he was a particular success with the female part of his audiences, although amorous intrigue does not seem to have been among his interests and not a single anecdote of scandal or sexual intrigue is attributed to him.

At the height of his career, at the age of 32, he was invited to the Spanish court where he spent the following 23 years, also holding institutional responsibilities. He then retired to Bologna where he lived until his death on the 16th of September 1782, close to 78 years of age. He was buried in the Church of the Capuchins monastery in Bologna, which was destroyed in 1810 as a result of the Napoleonic invasion of 1796. His corpse was then moved to Certosa, the main cemetery of Bologna, at the bequest of his great-niece Maria Carlotta Pisani. In 1842, Farinelli’s remains were moved again in the same tomb that would receive the corpse of Maria Carlotta after her death in 1850. In 2006, Farinelli was exhumed again by a research group. It was an event promoted by a group of music enthusiasts at the Centro Studi Farinelli and by scientists of the universities of Bologna and Pisa, the former hoping that analysis of his skeleton would unveil the secret of his legendarily sweet, powerful voice. The poor preservation state of the remains made it impossible to gain any insight into the secret of his legendary voice, but it revealed interesting information on his biological profile.

In spite of the poor preservation state of Farinelli’s skeleton, some characteristics were observed that allowed the reconstruction of his biological profile. Some of them, such as tall stature and the presence of pathological conditions more frequently found in females, were likely related to castration.

In August 1770, Charles Burney described the 65-year-old Farinelli as follows: ‘Mister Farinelli still lives and is in good health and spirits. I found him much younger in appearance than I expected. He is extremely tall and thin and has a youthful air and he seems by no means infirm’. Like Ricci’s drawing, many other portraits and caricatures of the famous singer confirm this description, as did his skeletal features.

Anton Maria Zanetti The Elder (1680-1767), Farinelli in Walking Dress, pen and ink, c. 1729-30, Fondazione Cini, Venice

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Farinelli was described as a good-natured man with an inclination to melancholy that worsened with advancing age. He found comfort in music and singing, having preserved a beautiful and powerful voice until the end. Three weeks before his death he sang almost the whole day long. He also preserved a good memory and was lucid until the day before his death.

We are not lucky enough to be able to listen to his voice but we can, however, still listen to the voice of another castrato. The last one. Alessandro Moreschi. He made a series of recordings in Rome for the Gramophone and Typewriter Company in 1902 and 1904. Being in his mid-forties when he recorded these solos, his voice was no longer in its prime. However, I do believe that besides being the only source to preserve the voice of a castrato, the recordings also manage to transport you to that era in Italy through a voice that is haunting more than anything. Truly a voice from the past. Here’s a link to a recording of ‘Ave Maria’.

Remember to leave any comments or thoughts below and I apologise for my reflection in the photo of Marco Ricci’s drawing!